Cancer health communication in the Netherlands 1910-1950: paternalistic control or popularization of knowledge?

From the First World War onwards anti-cancer organizations in Europe attempted to spread the message of "Do Not Delay": cancer is curable, if and when early diagnosed. This article reports on a systematic study of sources on cancer health education from the medical and public domains in the Netherlands between 1910 and 1950. Dutch cancer specialists were not at all enthusiastic about spreading too much knowledge about various aspects (genetic, environmental etc.) among laymen, fearing cancerophobia among the public, and preferred to channel information and guidelines through intermediate health professionals. Cancer health education campaigns, doing away with this paternalistic attitude, only started on a comparable scale to other countries in the 1950s, possibly because of the pressure of fund-raising. Before that time compliance of patients with public health policies was orchestrated by the intervention of intermediate civil bodies, such as home nursing services. Health policies in the Netherlands were characterized by indirect strategies involving different actors.